Subjectivity – A Primer

1. Subjectivity – A Primer EDIND 852

2. The triple subjected subject • The complexities of a poststructural theory of the subject can be laid out as three interlocking and recursive moments wherein the subject is seen as: • the subject of discourse (knowledge, ideas about who and what the subject can be), • subjected in and through technologies of power (practices that work to produce the subject in particular ways), • and produced through practices of self (ways in which the subject is invited to act upon him/herself).

3. Discourse • Refers to “…what can be said and thought, but also about who can speak, when and with what authority. Discourses embody meaning and social relationships, they constitute both subjectivity and power relations” (Ball, 1990, p. 2.) • Discourse concerns how certain statements, ideas, and identities are made intelligible and ‘true’. Simply put, discourses are, “groups of related statements which cohere in some way to produce both meanings and effects in the real world” (Carabine, 2001, p. 268). • Discourse is, “locked in an intricate web of practices, bearing in mind that every practice is by definition both discursive and material” (Henriques et al., 1984, p. 106). Discourse and practice cannot be separated but are mutually constitutive and thus dependent on each other: discourses are performative/ practices are discursive.

4. Discourse - Subject Positions • The subject is discursive because, “persons come to ‘be’ ‘who’ they are by being intelligible within discourses, the bodies of meaning that frame social contexts” (Youdell, 2006b, p. 2). • This intelligibility is enabled through the creation of subject positions, which can be defined as “…empty spaces or functions in discourse from which to comprehend the world” (Barker & Galasiński, 2001, p. 13).

5. Practices (of power) • Power/knowledge • power is not knowledge (or vice versa), rather, “it is not possible for power to be exercised without knowledge and it is impossible for knowledge not to engender power” (Prado, 2000, p. 71).

6. Self-practices • To be a subject in this sense is to “define one’s subjectivity by ‘learning’ what one is through internalization of the truths and knowledges power produces” (Prado, 2000, p. 69). • Self-practices are focused on how the self can act on itself, naming itself, finding itself within the discourses on offer at a particular time • subjects participate in their own subjection • subjects come to see themselves as particular subjects, with individual, self-chosen attributes and values and identifications.

7. A simple example • Attendance • Discourse – around good students, around the teacher • Subject positions – made available to you in these discourses • Practice of Power – the technology of taking attendance… knowledge/power • Self-practices – you heard me call you, and you need to respond. Interpellation…

8. Caster Semenya Sex? Gender? Discourse, Practices of power, Self

9. The Discursive Field • Constellations of meaning • Male • Masculine • Rational • Mind • Culture • Active • Female • Feminine • Emotional • Body • Nature • Passive • Discourse • Practices • Self